Research has identified that long term use of medications for treatment of obesity in patients has resulted in many problems. The two most significant problems encountered by patients using medications to assist in weight loss, assuming the absence of irreversible side effects from the medications, are that:
The medications stop working during therapy where at least 40% to 50% of patients quit losing weight (plateau) on an average of 3.3 months into therapy; and 5% to 8% of patients who receive drug therapy for weight problems experience the complication where the medications fail to assist in appetite suppression where the patient therefore does not lose significant weight.
In the past long term treatment, defined as treatment longer than 3 months to many years, with drugs has been a problem due to long term safety issues including, medication intolerability by the patient, medication side effects and most important ineffectiveness of the drugs or the cessation of benefit of the drugs which in turn causes the patient to fall out of appetite suppression and terminate weight loss.
A weight loss procedure using SSRI medication is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,895. The potential for patients to obtain goal weight loss under the process of U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,895 is low, and the failure of the drugs to provide a desired level of performance is at the heart of the problem.
In the past obesity or weight management procedures, as noted in U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,895, implement a single dosing schedule of SSRI medication for a patient. A single dosing schedule of SSRI medication is not optimal for a desired level of weight loss performance. Individuals frequently fail to lose a desired amount of weight when alternative doses of medication are unavailable.
Second, patients receiving treatment for weight loss through the use of medication frequently experience complications such as a cessation of performance of the medication due to a “nutritional deficiency”. Frequently it is difficult to predict which patients are likely to experience unacceptable performance of weight loss medication due to nutritional deficienciesassociated with calorie deficits.
It is also problematic to predict the outcome of medication treatment upon individuals receiving Norepinephrine medications such as Phentermine and/or Diethylpropion. These medications have unique chemical properties making the outcome of treatment of patients uncertain. In addition not all medications function to assist in weight loss. In the past SSRI (selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) medications which have been used in weight loss include Fluoxetine Hydrochloride (Prozac), Sertraline (Zoloft), Fluvoxamine Maleate (Luvox), and Trazodone Hydrochloride (Desyrel).
The treatment programs for obesity as known also teach away from the use of alternative dosing procedures in the treatment of weight loss. Specifically U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,895 teaches that an SSRI medication never needs to be raised to improve the anorexiant effect of weight loss and that the SSRI medication level administered to a patient may be raised to assist in the treatment of coexisting conditions such as depression.
It is therefore desirable to have a weight loss treatment program for a patient which provides for an effective therapeutic range of available medication to enhance desired weight loss. It is also desirable to provide a weight loss program which minimizes the percent of individuals who do not initially respond to the medication treatment regime or who cease to continue to receive the beneficial effects of the weight loss program following the initiation of the medication treatment due to nutritional deficiencies. These and other problems are solved by the disclosed Comprehensive Pharmacologic Therapy For Treatment Of Obesity.